


i'm in the corner, watching you kiss... who?

by stott183



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Parents Aren't Evil, Amy is alive bc fuck jonah, Chase Is Bi, F/M, Flashbacks, Gert is bi, Gert makes some rash decisions, Love Confessions, References to Child Abuse, everyone is an L or a B except for Alex and Amy who are in love, fun teen misunderstandings!, general confusion and repression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 04:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18804097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stott183/pseuds/stott183
Summary: Chase grabs her shoulder. “Gert, don’t tell the others yet. I am gonna do it, soon, but don’t tell them.” Gert, through a film of hazy nausea, is still shocked he thinks she would.“No, Chase, of course not, this is- it’s your thing.” Her head bobs like a crazy woman.Chase liked boys. Sexually. And romantically. Chase was gonna tell Gert. It had only been like 3 months, he was just figuring himself out. He had enough excuses to kill a horse. And now he had a drunk friend (who he was in love with) and a whole thing to deal with.ORGert thinks she's Robyn, but it turns out she's just kind of a dick.





	i'm in the corner, watching you kiss... who?

**Author's Note:**

> anyway chase is bi. title and inspiration for the beginning of this fic from Robyn's classic Dancing On My Own.

Amy lays on the floor of Gert’s room, popping bubble gum and wiggling her hips to whatever sugary bullshit Molls has put on the speaker. The bubble gum, along with the overly staged air of how she laid, hair fanned out and feet on the bed, made the moment appear to jump out of a romcom. Gert sighed and cocked her head. Her life was such nonsense sometimes. “Ames, I’m serious. I need your help here.” She glanced forlornly between the shirts in her hands, and considers changing her bra for the 14th time tonight.

“Why would you need my expert fashion advice if this is just an intervention, babe?” Amy’s smile is wicked. “Or are we finally talking about the lacrosse stick in the room?” 

Gert sputters. “It’s still a party! I can’t just walk in wearing whatever and draw attention to myself.” Her face is hot, and she is pointed ignoring the lacrosse stick in the room, thank you very much. She’s trying to help him, not steal him from this new girl. Chase wouldn’t— it’s not an option on the cards. 

“If you want to blend in, the blue one. If you want to make people drool, it’s the black all the way.” Amy pops the bubble gum again. “Though if you really didn’t care you’d be wearing one of those ratty band t-shirts and your leather jacket.” 

“She’s right!” Molly pops her head in, hair half-tamed and clad in a bathrobe over jeans. “You’re putting in the effort and you won’t let us go. Face the music, Gert!” 

“Go get ready for your date, you fucking hooligan. Just because you two are all tied up in your SOs doesn’t mean we’re all looking for love.” Gert pulls the black shirt over her head. Molly whistles and continues down the hall. Gert turns back to Amy, the traitor, who is laughing sharply. “You’re driving me, fuckface.” 

“GERT!” Dale calls from the bottom of the stairs. “Language, sweetie, you’ve got a better vocab than that! We’ll see you tomorrow!” She hears the front door shut, and her parents are off to their pre-conference dinner. Lace, their greyhound, snorts in Gert’s bed. Gert wholeheartedly agrees. She checks her hair in the mirror one last time, and picks up the keys to throw to Amy. If she has to do this, she can get a little drunk. 

In the car, she puts on a loud playlist and bitches about having to enter Shawn Levy’s stupid house to see his stupid friends spill beer on stupid freshman. House parties are not generally her thing, particularly Chase’s crowd. The bitching is partly true, and partly so Amy doesn’t ask anymore lacrosse themed questions. If Gert wanted to confront her reasoning for doing this, she would have mentioned it to her goddamn therapist, but Megan thinks she has a quiet night planned, so. Amy can eat it. 

Walking into this room is not the hardest thing Gert has ever done. Only like, top 5. Max. The bass of the deafening, nondescript song rocks Gert back on her heels when she walks in. It’s a far cry from the poppy ‘heartbreak but having fun’ playlist they had been screaming to in the car. The lights are dim and her stomach feels queasy, but she has to do this. (Right? She’s gotta do this once and for all?) The party around her feels like a living thing. She is going to find out why Chase was so skittish. They have collectively decided he must have some new girlfriend, someone he was afraid to tell them about. Gert doesn’t get why, unless it’s Eiffel. Nico would skin him alive if he was fucking Eiffel behind their backs. The party swells as she pushes through it, like a living organism diorama at the children’s science museum. How the fuck is she supposed to find Chase here? 

* * * * *

_When they were 12, Chase kissed Gert on the lips. They were young enough then that it didn’t count, but at the time bells rung in his head. He was sure this meant they were getting married now. They were in the tree in the Wilder’s massive backyard that they claimed as their own for games. Games mostly meant pretend, but at 12 they had grown out of playing house with the acorns. Now they talked, or threw a nut back and forth until one of them dropped it and had to complete a pre-planned dare. That was what was supposed to happen that day. Chase dropped the nut, and was supposed to go tell Mr. Wilder he needed ‘man advice’ to see what he would even say. Instead, when she tried to shove him out of the tree, Chase had caught a branch last second and lunged forward— clumsy in the specific way of children— and brushed his warm, dry mouth against Gert’s for a split second. Then Gert fell out of the tree and broke her thumb, and the dare was forgotten. No one asked why he was so unwilling to go talk to Mr. Wilder, either, so Chase was never humiliated in front of Alex for being weird about his dad. He had done two good things in one day._

* * * * *

Eiffel is in the corner kissing… someone. That new girl, fuck, what was her name? Jackie, Jenna, something. Gert keeps mistaking her for Karolina. Julie! New Julie. So Eiffel was out as Chase’s mystery woman, thank fuck. Gert squeezes over to the refreshments table set up against the side wall of this living room. She mixes vodka with juice until it doesn’t taste like vodka. This Nancy Drew moment has been a week of ‘just the girls’ groupchats in the making. She is gonna see that Chase was seeing someone else so she could move on. Or— she was here to reassure him that they would love him no matter who he was dating. She stayed against the wall, scanning for any sign of Chase. Why did she pick such a generic looking best friend? Any one of these 20 ‘brown hair and built’ guys could have been him from the back. 

* * * * *

_At 9, Chase Stein told his entire English class his favorite hero was Iron Man because he had met him once. Iron Man had been revealed as Tony Stark several months prior, so the newness of his real face had worn off, but this was still quite an achievement. They met when Chase was 6 and ½, when his father’s career was taking off. Victor was courted by a few of the biggest companies at the time, before it became clear that he was a miserable prick set on forging his own path of destruction. Tony had come to their house personally to have dinner, and left abruptly when he saw Chase flinch at Victor’s tone. This wasn’t what made Iron Man his favorite hero. In fact, Iron Man wasn’t Chase’s favorite hero, or his favorite guy, he had seemed like kind of a jerk. But he was Gert’s favorite hero. Chase got it, he had a certain air about him, back then, that made him seem smart and capable. Sort of suave. Chase was interested in it, even if he didn’t know why. So Chase said it so Gert could hear it, and he didn’t tell Gert that Tony left his card and his father tore it up and threw a vase at the wall. Not ‘til years later, anyway, when the abuse surfaced amongst the kids. Tony had been revealed to be less of the hero everyone thought he was by then, and Gert had gone to a rally against Stark Enterprises. By high school none of them believed in heroes anymore. Then they hugged and cried and Chase told her everything._

* * * * *

Gert hopes this streak isn’t about Victor. Janet had won the custody battle last year, and Victor’s in New York now, playing a different kind of god in the most dangerous city in America. Gert hopes some aliens blow him sky high. Gert’s heart had broken when Chase finally told her, after ending up in the ER with 4 broken ribs and no one left to contact. Victor had knocked Janet out, that time. The last time. But she isn’t thinking about that now. There were rumors that Victor was seeing someone, and she knew it killed Chase. The trial was painfully public, and in the end Victor barely got community service and ended up with some new woman a few months later. It was disgusting. 

She hates parties, her head hurts and her anxiety was flaring in her stomach. He isn’t dancing. She shifts toward the back rooms, texting Amy status reports and drinking a little too quickly. She thinks he might have ditched out, or else is already hiding in one of the back rooms with some overeager cheerleader. Maybe blonde Haley or Marissa who got the nose job or— fuck it. She grabs another drink. 

* * * * *

_At 7 and ½, Alex Wilder told his friends he would be marrying Amy Minoru and they would have little geek babies (Nico’s words) that would be born with tiny glasses (Gert’s input). Gert was going to officiate; Chase was Alex’s best man. Nico was Amy’s best woman (because maid of honor sounds dumb, Ames). Karolina was being flower girl and Molly was bearing the rings (grass Karolina had twisted together). It was a beautiful ceremony for a shotgun wedding, and Gert declared them ‘man and woman’. They ‘ate’ dirt-cake and danced to the songs on Amy’s tinny iPod touch. When they laid in the grass, giggling and trying to throw dirt on the newlyweds, Chase tackled Gert and pinned her down._

_He asked, very quietly, “Can we have one of these someday?”_

_Gert giggled, rolled so Chase was pinned under her. “What if I want to marry Robin Hood?” Chase considers this for a moment, still attempting to wriggle away. Robin Hood was good, he was nice to people. Chase could be married to Robin Hood._

_“He can come.” He wrenches his hand away and takes off toward the trampoline._

* * * * *

Gert’s gonna find this bastard. Her absolute best friend in the whole world, the slippery asshole. Never mind her aching head or sloshy stomach. She’s not drunk, just kind of tipsy, and it is making her extra determined. And less jealous, weirdly. When she thought about it, it made sense that Chase get with some girl on his level. It’s not like Gert wants to be here every weekend, hanging off some jock’s arm. She would have no fun, dancing and drinking and hooking up in stranger’s beds. Shit, stop thinking about hooking up with Chase. It’s not the point of the mission, damnit. 

Gert’s doing this for his own good, anyway. If she just ‘ends up’ here, at this party none of the rest of them would feasibly go to, she could catch Chase off guard and remind him that none of them cared what girl he was dating as long as he was happy. Because Gert doesn’t. Care. She loves Chase, even if he doesn’t want her back in all the dumb, longing ways she wants him, and this trip was only a little masochistic. Like, 30 percent. 50, max. It’s just his hair is so soft and his eyes are so bright and he smells like artificial summer rain and he gets Gert, in ways no one else ever does. Chase Stein is a hard man not to fall in love with. 

* * * * *

_When Chase was 4, he met his best friend in the whole world, and promptly spilled orange juice on her off-white jumpsuit. He expected her to kick and scream, expected an angry outburst from his father when he got home. He hung his head and waited for the screams, for the little girl to freak out. Instead, she took his little baby fist in her hand, marched them up to a man in fishbowl glasses, and demanded her princess dress out of the washing machine. The nice man even gave him a cookie. Gert’s Dad, he said. (When the kids were older, he insisted Chase call him Dale. Chase never did.) Victor never found out, and Gertrude Yorkes became the nearest and dearest thing to his heart. Which is why he can’t tell her this. Not yet._

* * * * *

Gert gets a text from Amy, which she ignores, and one from Alex a second later. That just means they’re together and Amy is impatient for updates. Then one from Nico, attempting to confirm that Eiffel is not hooking up with one of the only sacred people in her life. Gert pockets her phone, and pushes on to more important things. 

She has been nervous for Chase all month. He seems off, like he’s got something big to tell her and won’t for fear of her reacting badly. She thinks if it’s not a girlfriend, he might have gotten early acceptance somewhere far away, or maybe to a school Gert didn’t apply to. Not that she would be mad about that, but still. Maybe, the whispers of doubt in her gut called up, stronger with alcohol, he had finally figured it out. Chase knew she was in love with him, and he was trying to distance himself until he could politely decline. Gert stumbles down a hallway toward a series of cracked open doors. Her anxiety is just getting the best of her. She needs to sit down for a second, somewhere quiet, and collect herself. She pushes the door to a room open and stumbles toward the bed. Except, the bed is already occupied. By two boys. By two kissing boys. One of whom is her best friend and lifetime companion Chase Stein. He’s looking at her with the eyes of a person woken suddenly from a good dream into a living nightmare. 

Gert’s head bobs between the faces before her, and she clears her throat. “I’m, huh, I’m gonna go. I’m going. Bye, guys.” 

* * * * *

_Chase Stein is 15 when he first thinks that he might not be straight. It’s Gert’s fault, actually. She came out as bi the year before, prompting Karolina, Nico, and Molly to all come out through the next 6 months. It was, a lot, to suddenly be on the minority side in a group he was so used to having everything in common with. Chase hadn’t even really known that bisexuality was a thing. He knew he wasn’t gay and he tried to ignore anything past that._

_In reality, Chase probably knew when he was 6 and woke up from a dream where he was Buttercup in The Princess Bride, being courted by handsome blond Wesley. But he didn’t consider it an option until Gert said she was bi. Because Chase loved Gert, kind of all-consumingly, like he could never consider anyone else. She had obviously thought about other people, and appeared to not really be interested in disrupting their friendship for anything, if the series of mostly girls she dated from 14 to 16 said anything about her intentions. He had been having a series of ‘be him/be with him’ crises for a few years, and needed a distraction from the burning pit of jealousy in his stomach. Thus began his ill-advised plan._

* * * * *

Gert stumbles out into the party, and she can hear footsteps behind her. She turns, briefly, while fumbling with her phone, attempting to summon a Lyft. Chase is following her in the way you follow a wounded animal. His eyes are wary, and he looks sad, she thinks. 

“Chase no, really we can talk later, I’m gonna go, you keep— keep doing whatever you were doing.” Victor Mancha, a friend of theirs through Alex, had followed Chase out of the bedroom. That was a whole nother layer of weird, and Gert can feel how drunk she looks now. Chase nods, and grabs her shoulder. 

“Gert, don’t tell the others yet. I am gonna do it, soon, but don’t tell them.” Gert, through a film of hazy nausea, is still shocked he thinks she would. 

“No, Chase, of course not, this is- it’s your thing.” Her head bobs like a crazy woman. “Safe secret. Alex is gonna be pumped, though.” She snorts. “Vic can come to game night, bet he kills Battleship. Hey, Vic! ‘Re you good at Battleship?!” Victor’s got the same look that Chase does, like Gert is a timebomb. He smiles, tightly, and nods. She’s getting annoyed. This is her best friend, who does he think she is? “Chase, you’re still my guy. Don’t— this— we’re the same. No change. I’ll talk to you when I’m better.” Gert walks out of the house and, deciding she needs the air, keeps walking for almost 20 minutes, safety app open on her phone. When she finally gets home she collapses in bed, face first. Her sleep is full of odd dreams, a wedding at a Pride parade and Amy wearing a devil costume doing Spooky Mormon Hell Dream but like, at the wedding. She wakes up sick. 

* * * * *

_Victor was gay, cool, and cute. Chase invited him out for coffee to help him with a problem, and Victor hadn’t asked the questions Chase didn’t want to answer. He didn’t ask ‘why don’t you just tell your friends?’ or ‘are you trying to get over Gert or something?’. He smiled, and answered all of Chase’s weird ‘how did you know?’s’ and then offered a deal Chase almost didn’t accept. He was cute, and Chase was cute, did Chase want help figuring out if the mechanics appealed to him? Not dating, Victor clarified, no strings. But ‘you seem lost, Chase. C’mon, let me find you.’ So it started. In the backs of cars, at parties. Just kissing, heavy petting. Minor stuff. And Chase did like the mechanics. He didn’t like Victor, and Vic was in love with some kid from his own school anyway, but the kissing was nice. The talking was nice. Chase liked boys. Sexually. And romantically. Chase was gonna tell Gert. It had only been like 3 months, he was just figuring himself out. He had enough excuses to kill a horse. And now he had a drunk friend and a whole thing to deal with._

* * * * *

Gert wakes up to a loud thump on her door. 

“Text Amy back, you hungover monster! They thought you died last night!” Fuck. Fuckity fuck canoe full of shit. Gert groans. She rolls over to look at her phone, fighting the way the light hurts her eyes. 8 texts and 3 missed calls. 

12:15 am AMY: u find ur man yet? *our. 

12:15 am ALEX: any news on the chase front? ames won’t play until she knows. gert pls. 

12:15 am NICO: hey whats happening? do u see evil queen? karo says she’s stopped over there and doesn’t see anything, do you see her? 

12:30 am gert u ok? 

12:40 am gert k just saw you crying in the street 

12:40 am MISSED CALL NICO 

12:45 am MISSED CALL AMY (2) 

1:05 am NICO: fuck. hon. at least tell me u got home ok. 

1:15 am molly says ur fine. tlk tomorrow. ames is sry. :( 

6:03 am CHASE: text me when you’re awake, gert. i can explain. 

Gert is gonna die here. In this bed, before she has to hear her best friend tell her he’s been avoiding her because she’s a pathetic failure who can’t keep a secret and is too in love with him to be trusted anyway. She should get up and take her meds. 

Her morning passes in that swirl of anxiety-fear-strangle feeling. It’s nearly 10 before she texts Chase back, resigned to the fact she’s gonna get friend-dumped. 

9:48 am GERT: hey. u don’t need to explain, but we can talk abt it if u want 

9:51 am CHASE: of course i wanna talk about it, gert. lets get food. ralphs? 

9:55 am GERT: sure. see u in 20? 

9:55 am CHASE: cool 

Gert’s gonna die in her favorite diner. Spectacular. She feels the deep rooted sense that she fucked up, crossed an uncrossable line. But it’s not like she walked into that room on purpose! She just, followed Chase to that party to confront him about perceived behavior instead of asking him what was wrong directly or giving him a chance to come to her. Literally. None of them had just flat-out asked if something was wrong, or told him he could talk if he needed to. Not that he didn’t know that was an open invitation, but with Chase most of the time the words had to be pretty explicit. She hit her head on Roberta’s steering wheel and groaned. She’d fucked up. She’d fucked up and now she had to go have the most awkward talk of her life with the guy she was in love with. 

* * * * *

Chase’s morning is not going better. He woke up to a stress-cry headache that could have measured up to Gert’s hangover, and went for a run to get off all his nervous energy. Gert didn’t reply for hours, and in the time between he works out, showers, cleans his room, makes and eats breakfast, and rewatches like 3 episodes of Gilmore Girls. He’s determined to stay calm about this. Gert’s just sleeping off whatever she had last night, she didn’t get dramatically murdered on her walk home. When his phone finally buzzes, he jumps 4 feet in the air. They settle on Ralph’s and Chase spends the 10 minutes before he needs to leave rehearsing all the reasons he’s angry. This is a violation of his trust, and what was she even doing there? Couldn’t she have just texted him? By the time he parks at Ralph’s, he’s ready to rip Gert a new one. He watches her car pull into the parking lot a few spots from him, with half a mind to go knock on her window and just talk out here, when he sees the look on her face. She looks devastated. She probably feels so guilty. Fuck. He’s gonna forgive her, isn’t he? Whatever. Fuck off. 

He walks in and smiles at Kayla, the breakfast waitress. She nods and waves at him from another table and gestures to the back, a move meant to indicate ‘your regular order?’ Chase clears his throat to speak for the first time in like 14 hours. His voice comes out squeaky, and he can see Kayla stifle a laugh. “Yeah, thanks. Gert’s coming too, could you do her—” Kayla cuts him off with a thumbs up as she refills an old man’s coffee. This silent conversation happens approximately once a week, and Chase knows his orange juice and Gert’s coffee will be there in a minute. He settles into their booth and tries not to choke on his own anxiety. He’s watching the door, so he sees the minute Gert walks in, and looks around like maybe he didn’t show up. The face she makes when she sees him is pinched and pale, like he’s a particularly bad test, or a rape apologist on TV. Good. She should be nervous. Chase does not want to hug her right now. 

* * * * *

Gert lays in her car for 13 minutes after arriving 10 minutes early for the purpose of sitting in her car and wallowing. She just has to walk in there and say ‘congratulations on the boyfriend, man I have been in love with for my entire life! I hope you get married and have a bunch of weirdly smart babies!’ It should not be hard. He’s in the booth when she walks in, and nice Kayla waves her off in the way that means ‘boy already ordered’ from a table of 5 screaming children. Gert tips her 50 percent every time, because they can fuckin’ afford it on a 20 dollar bill and Kayla is maybe the best woman she’s ever met. Kayla is almost enough to keep her coming here after her inevitable humiliation here, but it’s a tentative bet. Humiliation is sitting 8 feet in front of her, looking as miserable as she feels. She still can’t fucking believe she did that. Her headache throbs in reminder as she walks toward him and slides in the red vinyl booth seat opposite his mild glare. 

“Well—” 

“Can I start with an—” They speak at once, Chase slowly and Gert at the speed of light. 

“Here, you go first.” Chase gestures a sort of ‘go on’ movement and leans back into the booth. 

“Can I just start with an apology? I should never have followed you, we just got nervous about your behavior and we didn’t want you getting into trouble and we should have just asked, I know, but I chickened out and thought if I just ran into you there you’d tell us who she— well, he— was but it was a total line and I crossed it and I understand if you need time and space and whatever else.” Gert does not breathe during the monologue, and pants at the end. Chase cocks an eyebrow. 

“I’m gonna need at least 8 sentences more of background, ‘Rude. Who’s we, who did you think you would meet, and exactly what do you think I’m mad about?” Kayla drops off their drinks, finally getting a chance to greet them. 

“And how are my favorite lovebirds this morning? Your orders are all set. I’ve got some tomato juice in the back if you all are jonesing for a hangover cure.” She reads the vibe a second too late and stops dead in her verbal tracks. “Whoa, alright, tough crowd with you two.” She leans over the table and squints at the air. “Just as I thought, tension so thick you could cut it with a knife over here.” She mimes the action and grins. Gert cracks a smile and Chase chuckles. “There’s the kids. Food’ll be out in a minute.” 

“Thanks, Kayla.” Chase smiles his ‘it’s gonna be fine, chin up’ smile at her and she walks away. 

Chase turns back to Gert. “Alright, seriously. Explanation time.” 

“Okay, so you had been— well we thought you had been— acting kind of off. When I say we I just mean the group. Minus like Molly because she doesn’t pay attention during hangouts and Alex because he reads emotions at like a 5th grade level but. The rest of the girls and I. And we thought maybe you had a secret girlfriend, which we were almost right about, and that you were nervous because you thought we wouldn’t approve.” Gert’s looking at him to see how he responds, but Chase is remaining surprisingly neutral. He leans back against the booth, and she leans forward across the table, like magnets. “So I went to Shawn’s last night to ‘run into you’ and have a really positive reaction to whoever you were with, to put you at ease. And then I had a little too much to drink and sort of started having a panic attack, so I tried to find an empty room and then horribly violated your privacy and right to choose about coming out.” Chase nods, because she did in fact, do that. “So I’m assuming that you’re mad because I outed you and also made your boyfriend uncomfortable.” Gert wrings her hands. Chase shakes his head, exasperated. 

“You assholes know you could have just asked, right? I would’ve caved like, immediately, have you met me? I was just, I was trying to figure out how to tell you guys. I didn’t want it to be some big, special thing, but I wanted to be sure. I’m not dating Vic, Gert.” Gert’s eyes get wide, and he’s watching her click the story into place. Normally he loves that face. “It was just a thing to test the waters. Make sure I wanted to act on stuff. I don’t know, this is why I didn’t want to tell you!” Chase paused, looking for his words. “It’s— it’s confusing and you have it all figured out, all of you, even fuckin Molly, and she’s a baby! And I grew up hearing all this hateful, gross shit from my dad and I thought maybe this was a rebellion thing, and I certainly didn’t want to talk to you about it!” Chase catches himself a second too late, and Gert’s face crumples. 

“Yeah no of course you didn’t, I get it—” She's gonna cry, shit. 

“Fuck, Gertie, that’s not what I meant, it’s just already confusing to talk about feelings with you, I didn’t want to add this to it. It’s a lot, we’re a lot.” This does not seem to cheer Gert up. 

“Oh. I guess I didn’t realize you knew. Okay. I’m really sorry, Chase, I didn’t mean to make this awkward. I understand if you need me to back off for a bit.” 

“Gert, what the fuck are you talking about?” Gert has lost Chase completely. He runs a hand through his hair. 

“What are… you talking about?” 

“The, the,” Chase gestures between them, “the tension. We’re tense. About feelings. Its tense. We’ve always been—” 

“Chase if you say tense one more time, I swear to god.” Gert looks at him more directly. “Exactly what kind of tense do you think we are?” 

“Hey, hey now, don’t you turn this shit on me! You screwed up, and I’m asking the questions! Now, why didn’t you guys just talk to me?” Chase huffs and crosses his arms. Gert’s head drops to the table, sticking slightly on the faux-wood top. 

Muffled, she says, “When was the last time any of your friends was smart enough to reach the logical conclusion, Chase?” She lifts her face. “We didn’t want to seem overbearing. If we’re acting all nosey and overprotective you’ll stop telling us shit. We didn’t want to collectively be your second mom.” 

“Yeah, okay. I can see Alex saying all of that. But, why were you there?” His emphasis on her sort of hurts. _‘Didn’t want to talk to you about it.’_

“I am your friend.” She sniffs. “I volunteered to go.” 

“Karolina was also there. Why didn’t she ask me? She saw me with Vic, we said hey. Not a word from her.” Chase has been backing her into this verbal corner, and she has to face the music. 

She opens her mouth to speak. “I wante—” 

“Breakfast for our favorite customers.” Kayla is carrying their plates and grinning. “Danny says hi, and to ask Alex one more time if he’s really set on his relationship.” Chase laughs, fake and gruff. 

“Tell Danny hi, and remind him again that Alex and Amy have been married since we were like 4. Thanks for the food.” His smile is much more real than the laugh, but nervous energy pours off him. Kayla glances between them, so clearly amused at their situation it almost annoys Gert. Her life is falling apart around her and all Kayla can do is laugh and bring omelettes. And Chase’s guilty pleasure double chocolate chip pancakes. Which Kayla knows are only for special occasions. Fuck, maybe Gert’s just too stressed about her imploding friendship. She also smiles at Kayla, giving her a thumbs up as she turns away from the table. 

Chase turns his gaze back to her, and sets a stubborn line through all of his features. He’s not budging an inch today. She starts again. “I wanted to see for myself. If it was a girl. I wanted to see her for myself before it was like, a group thing.” Gert’s gonna puke, shaky and light-headed. Her hangover and her anxiety aggravate each other until the mass of fear in her gut feels like a hurricane of bile. 

Chase cocks his head. “Why?” The string of realization lassoed around the two of them gets tighter. Gert has to say this, or something is going to take him from her. She sees him in a tux, across the aisle from a faceless person, beaming in chapel. Bouncing a tiny baby in his arms, reffing a soccer match, sending a kid off to college. With someone who isn't her. She’s being dramatic, they’re barely 17, but what if? 

“It was gonna hurt, is why. It was gonna hurt to see you with someone else and if everyone was there I would have cried in front of them. It would have been embarrassing.” Her voice has taken a sharp edge to it. She shouldn’t be telling him any of this, but he backed her into a wall. She overstepped, and this was her penance. She waited for him to start his rejection speech. He was gonna be clear and soft spoken, and it was gonna break her heart. Ruin their group. Molly was going to be pissed. 

“Gert,” there was the tone, careful and quiet, “why?” 

Now she was angry. Laid her heart out for him, and he can’t even respect her enough to tell the truth? “You know damn well why, Chase. Can’t you drop this?” 

“Gert.” He’s got an edge to it now, something desperate. The lassoe is now a chokehold. “Tell me why.” 

“Because I like you, asshole! Hell, I’m probably in love with you. Have been for years.” Gert picks up her fork, avoiding his eyes. “Your pancakes are cold.” 

“Gert.” Who knew there were so many fucking ways to say her name? He sounds… she can’t put her finger on this one. Gleeful? Scared? Whatever it is, it’s horribly out of context for their conversation. Can’t he have some respect for her plight? “Me too.” What? 

“You too what?” Gert’s way too hungover for this. 

“I love you too.” 

“Chase, I know you do. It’s sweet to make me feel better, but you know that’s not what I mean.” 

“No.” He shakes a hand under her face until she looks at him. He looks like a dog with a bone. Grin wide, eyes bright. “I. Love. You. Too.” Gert feels her mouth fall open. “Since we were little, like elementary school.” 

“You— you asshole! Why didn’t you tell me?” What the fuck is her life? Her head throbs. 

“Oh yeah, let me just go out on that limb, risk major rejection from my only support system and jeopardize all of my friendships. It’s not like you were making any moves, Yorkes.” 

“Have you even seen yourself? You flipped a switch and went all ‘lacrosse god’ years ago. Like you would be interested in the girl who once got Nico’s hair caught in her braces during Twister. Anyway, you got so stiff after I came out that for a while there I thought you were homophobic or something. Straight guys don’t really date bi girls unless they watch too much lesbian porn.” 

“I’m not even straight! I can’t believe you would think I would think that! I was just jealous because you were dating around a lot. And another thing!” Chase is poking her dramatically in the chest now. “I haven’t been able to take my eyes off you since you dyed your goddamn hair! Asshole.” 

“Chase, I dyed my hair in ninth grade. That’s— that’s three years.” He throws his hands in the air. “Now you see what I’ve been working with!” 

“So you mean to tell me that I could have just kissed you for the last THREE YEARS?!” 

Chase folds his arms. “Longer. Probably the last five.” 

Gert leans forward threateningly. “I am going to flag down Kayla, pay for this food, and then you are taking me to your house. I have,” she flicks her eyes across the parts of his chest she can see without the booth in the way, “stuff to rectify.” Chase’s visible gulp is deeply satisfying. 

Kayla appears, like she was summoned. She was most likely just eavesdropping. She takes one look at the nearly untouched food and frowns. “What’s wrong? I promise Danny didn’t poison it. Well, I promise I didn’t see Danny poison it.” 

“No, everything is fine! We just had a weird night and we’re both too queasy to eat now. We’ll pay and grab a couple of boxes.” They keep glancing over at each other, unable to keep their eyes on Kayla. Chase is blushing.

“Crap, I owe Amy 5 bucks. Can you tell her that when you see her next?” Kayla is smiling, sharp with understanding. 

“I’ll just text her!” Chase scrambles for his phone, relieved for something to do. Gert continues to pay for the food and dump it in boxes. As they get up, Chase gets a text back from Amy. All it says is ‘congrats! knew you were hornier than you were stubborn!’ and Gert makes a point to subtly flip Kayla and Danny off as they wave from the kitchen door. Chase slings an arm over her shoulder to steer her away and guides her into the light of a new day.


End file.
